Academician Enters the Belt and Road Initiative | “Chinese Standards” Take Root in Lao Farmlands—Academician Bai Lianyang’s Team Helps Lao Farmers Boost Production and Income

Zhang Fufang and Tan Deng, All-Media Reporters of Hunan Daily

Published on page 04 of the Hunan Daily, June 10, 2023

 

Business card — Bai Lianyang, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Party Secretary and Vice President of the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Director of the Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory for Weed Biology and Safe Control. Under the leadership of Bai Lianyang, his team has achieved breakthroughs in the study of weed resistance mechanisms, and their sustainable weed management technologies have been widely adopted across China. Since 2017, the technological achievements of Academician Bai Lianyang’s team have been introduced to Laos, where they are conducting research and demonstration on a graded flooding technique for controlling weeds during the rice seedling stage, thereby boosting grain yields.

 

 

The rice varieties “Silk Road No. 1” and “Silk Road No. 6,” cultivated using technologies introduced from Hunan, were planted across tens of thousands of mu in Laos in 2022. This represents one of the achievements of Academician Bai Lianyang’s team as their technology “goes overseas” to Laos, becoming a “golden key” for boosting local grain production.

 

Hunan Xuanye Ecological Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hunan Xuanye") has been collaborating with the academician Bai Lianyang's team for many years. Recently, Xu Guowu, the company's head, introduced that, with the technical support of Academician Bai Lianyang's team, key agricultural crops such as rice, melons, fruits, and vegetables have been promoted and cultivated in Laos. "Laotian rice exports to China have increased from 20,000 tons in 2018 to 50,000 tons annually now."

 

Help Lao farmers transition from “slash-and-burn” agriculture to “intensive, meticulous farming.”

 

In September 2017, at the invitation of Laos’ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Bai Lianyang led his team to Laos for an inspection visit. The two sides signed a relevant cooperation agreement, marking the beginning of collaboration to introduce superior rice varieties, high-quality, high-yield, and environmentally friendly rice production technologies, and fully mechanized equipment into Laos.

 

 

Back then, Academician Bai Lianyang’s team collaborated with “Hunan XuanYe” to establish the “Hunan Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences XuanYe Laos Rice Research and Extension Center” in Laos, which was later renamed the “Laos-China Agricultural Research and Production Project Base.” Over the past six years, Academician Bai Lianyang’s team has successively sent technical personnel to Laos. Relying on this base, they have conducted research and demonstration on a graded flooding and weed-control technique for rice seedlings, helping Lao farmers increase their grain yields.

 

“Laos has ample arable land and a plentiful agricultural labor force, with 8 million hectares of arable land nationwide. However, local farmers adopt a production method characterized by extensive cultivation with low yields, resulting in poor efficiency,” Xu Guowu told the reporter.

 

Dr. Liu Yang, a member of Academician Bai Lianyang’s team, was once sent to Laos to conduct scientific research and stayed there for a year. Liu Yang said, “Laotian farmers basically don’t use pesticides or chemical fertilizers in their farming; they rely on manual labor for weeding, and their production methods are backward, resulting in low rice yields.”

 

 

Moreover, in Laos, rice is traditionally cultivated using conventional methods—few seedlings are transplanted and they are planted at a relatively deep depth, resulting in limited tillering and an insufficient number of effective panicles. “To address this issue,” said Liu Yang, “we have conducted research and demonstration on shallow-transplanting techniques aimed at increasing seedling density and boosting yields. By adopting rational transplanting practices, planting seedlings at a shallower depth, and increasing the number of seedlings transplanted—thus substituting tillers with seedlings and using tillers to promote panicle formation—we’ve been able to significantly increase both the number of rice seedlings and the number of effective panicles under conditions of moderate chemical fertilizer application, thereby substantially enhancing rice yields.”

 

“Lao farmers need to increase their income while reducing their labor intensity.” This is the guiding principle behind the technology promotion efforts of Academician Bai Lianyang’s team. Liu Yang told reporters that over the years, through research and demonstration, they have promoted precision farming techniques aimed at achieving high yields and increased incomes. As a result, some regions in Laos have gradually shifted away from the previous practice of extensive cultivation with low yields, leading rice farming toward more high-quality and high-yield cultivation methods.

 

Establish international standards for the rice industry chain, covering breeding, cultivation, processing, and export.

 

In addition to testing and promoting high-quality rice varieties from China, Academician Bai Lianyang’s team is also dedicated to developing native rice varieties in Laos. To date, they have bred four new rice varieties for Laos, which show significant improvements in both yield and quality compared to the country’s original rice varieties. Among these, “Silk Road No. 1” and “Silk Road No. 6,” which began being promoted in Laos in 2020, achieve a yield of 450 kilograms per mu—300 kilograms higher than that of the original varieties.

 

In the past, Laos’ rice exports were confined to informal border-trade transactions characterized by a lack of standards, organization, and established channels—spontaneous and fragmented in nature. To change this situation, “Hunan XuanYe” established a subsidiary in Laos in 2014. With the assistance of Academician Bai Lianyang’s team, it spent nearly two years introducing Chinese rice quality standards and cultivation techniques into Laos, helping the country establish internationally standardized practices across the entire rice industry chain—from seed breeding and cultivation to processing and export. These “Chinese standards” have been approved by Laos’ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and are gradually being rolled out nationwide.

 

In January 2016, the inaugural ceremony for Laos’ rice exports to China was held in Changsha, with the first shipment totaling 88 tons. As Laos has expanded the area under rice cultivation using Chinese production technologies, a new era of larger-scale rice exports has begun. Just the operation run by “Hunan Xuan Ye” for exporting Laotian rice to China has seen its volume grow from 20,000 tons in 2018 to 50,000 tons annually today.

 

Currently, Laos is cultivating rice on 30,000 mu of land using “Chinese standards,” with the scope expanding to Savannakhet, Pakse, Khammouane, and Vientiane. “We’re adopting a ‘2+3’ production model: local farmers provide the land and labor, while we supply capital, technology, and guaranteed market channels for purchasing the rice. We strictly control quality standards at every stage of rice production,” said Xu Guowu.

 

 

Authors: Zhang Fufang, Tan Deng

Editor-in-charge: Feng Hao

First instance: Feng Hao

Second Instance: Wang Han

Third Review: Tan Deng

Source: Hunan Daily · Xin Hunan Client